Modern Art, Modern Living

As much as the hyperactivity of this city can be overwhelming at times, it also brings good things with it: great theatre, music, famous intellectuals who speak all over the city, and, more recently and personally, a good friend of mine from the UK has come to live and work here for the year. This of course means that I get to play hostess/tour-guide and even do some of the things that I never get around to doing otherwise, like visit the many museums this city has to offer.

Which is what we did last weekend when we took a trip to MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). But walking around it I started to remember what I dislike about modern art exhibitions: namely that it is often art about art. In situations like this, I start getting philosophical. Philosophy, for me anyway, often begins in frustration (and not, as some might have it, in disappointment). One of the best interpreters that I've read of modern visual art is the American philosopher Arthur Danto. In Beyond the Brillo Box, Danto argued that "to see something as art is to be ready to interpret it in terms of what and how it means" and, " to interpret a work is to be committed to a historical explanation of the work." In other words, in order to understand a work, one must understand how it fits in and relates to previous work: "A red square of 1915 by Malevich," he writes, "is a very different work from a red square which might otherwise resemble it minutely, by Ad Reinhardt, done in 1962, and that in turn is very different from one done in 1981 by Marcia Hafif."

The meaning of the elements of a work of art is not immediately obvious or static, but involves a deep understanding of the 'language' of art, as it were. This concept of art might not be universally accepted, but it is hardly controversial. And I felt the weight of it come down on me while perusing one of the exhibits. Having no deep familiarity with modern art I was struck by how much I did not understand. At one point my friend came up to me and said, 'this is a nice piece.' I replied that I couldn't tell. Modern art so often, it seems to me, is not only its own language, but it is a language that talks to itself.

There was also an exhibit on the significance of the helicopter for civilians during the Vietnam War, and finally an exhibit on the transformation of the kitchen over the latter part of the 20th century. One of the panels on the wall noted that towards the middle of the 20th century arose a new kind of drama, the 'kitchen-sink' drama, which moved the focus of theatrical subjects from the higher classes or aristocracy (Wilde, Shaw etc) to more 'ordinary' people (Michel Tremblay). This makes sense, as the kitchen is a kind of hub of social activity in many (most?) households. And yet what struck me about this exhibit was the complete lack of subjects. Sure there were a couple of videos, some ads from previous decades featuring housewives and kitchen appliances, and even one eerie video of a what seemed like a Stepford wife, following a recipe in a kind of robotic way, making a mess of the ingredients in the process. But mostly there were 'machines of better living' on display, in their varying styles and manifestations.

Appliances with smooth and shiny exteriors, made for efficiency and housing various commodities in both times of economic boom and recession/depression filled the displays, demonstrating what kitchens should be rather than what they necessarily are. In his book The Look of Architecture, Witold Rybczynski writes that "both homes and clothes convey values." Put more generally: style conveys value. Sleek, shiny machines are built for sleek and shiny living.

But real living, or dwelling, is not always so simple or easily contained. I was reminded of a time when I was little, when my mum was making a tiramisu for a dinner party the following evening. It was the end of a long day, she had made everything else, and I suppose I was getting bored. So, I thought it might be funny, while she wasn't looking, to turn the blender up to the highest setting. Naturally when she turned it on, the entire eggy-white contents of the blender flew all over the kitchen - onto the ceiling, into the cracks between the cupboards, everywhere. Machines of better living? Not always.

The kitchen exhibit had made us all hungry by that point, so the day ended with another iconic New York experience: Katz's deli (where Meg Ryan has her infamous fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally). I remember once in a cafe in Edinburgh ordering something called the "New York-style pastrami sandwich". What I got was one thin slice of rubbery pastrami on a stale bagel. Contrast that with the Reuben sandwich I got from Katz's: so much meat I could barely fit it in my mouth. Now that's value.

Weddings, weddings, weddings...

I seem to have arrived at the age where everyone is getting married. In the past few years I have been to weddings in Ireland, in Canada, in Scotland, Chinese weddings, weddings I've been in, weddings I've simply attended, weddings of friends, weddings of family. I've been to more weddings than funerals (which is saying something since the Irish have a long history of bringing children to funerals), and so I've seen a wide array of brides and wedding styles.

On the whole, I'm not that big on weddings, especially religious weddings. The white dress, father walking her down the aisle, giving the bride away - the whole women-as-property aspect of it really just sets my teeth on edge. Especially in the UK and Ireland where the bride never speaks - I find that especially irritating as not only do we have the bride on display with the vestigial indicators of purity and property, but she doesn't get a voice either. Ugh.

But recently, I've been enjoying myself more and more. And I'm not sure if it's because I've been attending the weddings of people I know and love, or if it's just that, well, I'm getting older and as a prof of mine said recently, none of us is bigger than our culture. Sure, weddings might be originally a property transfer sanctioned by the given religious inst

itution, but they are also just great parties celebrating the love of two people, which means even more if you know the people and their history. They are also great reunions - like the wedding I attended in Edinburgh in June. Folks that I knew during my Masters were there, some returning from various parts of Europe just for the occasion. There was a steampunk theme, which could have gone either way but most of the guests had fun with it and so it worked. It was a humanist wedding, another plus, and then the reception was in a pub, and included a ceilidh (pronounced CAY-ley), a Scottish dance.

And the bride made a great, if slightly drunken, speech. We danced, and drank, and ate (delicious) vegan food.

Oh, and the bride wore turquoise.

Would you like a side of crazy with that?

New York has more than its fair share of crazies. In fact on any given day, on my way to the shop, or to university, on the subway or on the street, someone will yell something unusual at me. Usually I can't hear them because I've got my headphones on, but it's obvious when it happens. And I'm sort of used to it. In New York, anyway.

But I'm realizing that Toronto has its fair share of crazies as well. And I'm not just talking about the folks who I serve at the restaurant that I work at, who certainly do their fare share:

"OH so there's chicken already IN the Thai Chicken Salad, is there? I didn't realize!"

"Can we get two waters and split a salad?"

"Could I get a veggie burger, no bun, side salad, no dressing, and a diet coke?" [me (thinking): sorry, this is a restaurant, did you want to order anything with actual CALORIES?]

People seem to be getting crazier and crazier, but today I had an experience that wins the gold medal of crazy. After lunch with a friend, I was walking north on Yonge Street (the main street of Toronto) and there was a small pedestrian detour because of some construction. So there was a sort of 'pedestrian merging' that was happening, when all of a sudden the lady in front of me slowed down and stopped. So I waited for another lady to pass by, and then started walking past her when I noticed that she was saying something, so I took off my headphones to make sure she was ok, only to hear her yelling: "STOP FOLLOWING ME!" At first I was wondering if she was even talking to ME, so I gave her something of a confused look to which she responded, "OH YEAH you people always look so confused when I say this..."

Me: "??? Lady, you are seriously paranoid."

Her: "YES I KNOW, I KNOW!" she continued as I put my headphones back on and continued on my way.

Next time can I get my crazy on the side?

Put it back in your pants, fellas.

I am a single girl, and the past year has been an adventure in dating, both in NYC and in Toronto. I've experienced the horrors of the 'non-talker' (ie guy who can't put two words together or hold up his end of the conversation), the guy(s) who talks with his mouth full, and the guy who, with no regard to body language or sense of social decorum, pounces on you in the street.

But none of these surprises me as much as the guys who whip it out: yes ladies, the guys who bring out their cell phone in the middle of your date. I mean, seriously? Is this what we're doing now? When did this become acceptable? How do you make someone feel interesting and special if you answer every single text you get during a couple of drinks? Has our culture become so ADD that we simply can't help ourselves?

I've even tried pulling out my own cell phone in response, as a joke, but the joke gets lost. Or goes over like a lead... phone.

Word to the wise, guys: keep it in your pants. Seriously.

March Madness and Existential Crises

So March happened, with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on my end. NYC, Toronto, NYC. Unfortunately, I left NYC just as some seriously nice weather hit, only to get to cold, gloomy Toronto. But it was good to see friends and family again. Over coffee one day, a friend in Toronto mentioned that she had been talking about career goals with her mom recently, and that her mother basically said that her goals had been something along the lines of: to get married and have a family, and to do it better than her mother did.

By contrast the expectations of our generation, what has been ingrained in us since we were small, is that we could be anything we wanted to be. I think that this is especially true of women, since this has not always been the case. When my mum was in school, women became (for the most part) secretaries, nurses, or teachers. Or they simply stayed home to raise a family. Our generation, on the other hand, has (allegedly) unlimited choice.

Now, this sort of choice is paralyzing. You grow up being told that everyone is 'unique' (just like everyone else) and that you need to find your path in life. As a result I think that many of my friends and colleagues have not really started career paths. The choice is overwhelming. Will this particular thing be 'special' enough? Is it my true path? What about this choice over here, is this the better one? Which to choose? Which is good enough, special enough, interesting enough, impressive enough? What are the standards that we are measuring these by?

Multiply this sort of anxiety by a million when you live in NYC. Not only are you trying to design your life path by attempting to make it special, unique, impressive, ambitious etc, but so is EVERYONE ELSE. And a lot of the time, it seems as though everyone else is doing it better than you are. Oh, and they're usually dressed better than you are while they're doing it.

Canadian Gold

So the Olympics happened. And, like most Canadians, mostly what I cared about was the hockey. In fact, I probably cared MORE about the hockey this year since I now live, most of the time anyway, in America.

So some of my Canadian friends and I joined five hundred other Canadians at a mid-town bar at an event organized by some Facebook group called Canadians in NYC. We got there at around noon for the 3:15 game. There were no tables left. "Well," said the waitress, pointing to the one table at the very front, "those guys over there are here for brunch, and if they're not staying for the game then we can reserve that table for you. We don't usually do that but there's ten of you so it would be ok for today." So we checked it out, and they didn't even know there was a game, and said sure we could have their table. So we grabbed some drinks from the bar and stood around. And stood around some more. Finally, at 2pm their food came out. Because their food had taken so long, they were drinking up loads and loads of the free champagne that was coming with their all-inclusive brunch. By 3pm, only half of them left and there was barely standing room in the bar. So we went over to get our table. "OH, we're not leaving," one guy slurred. Excuse me? "Well... this lookslikefun. And I like fun." So our waitress had to go over and bully them. (As a waitress, I know how incredibly satisfying that sort of thing can be, esp when those customers have been assholes, which these guys were. Still, I could have kissed her.)

By the time the actual game started, you couldn't move. After the first period, I had to go ACROSS THE STREET to go to the bathroom. And then plead and con my way back in. ("But I have a table, and food getting cold!") Drunken Canadians pushed at me from almost all sides, though at one point I was in the corner, with no one jostling me, and a great view of the bar: a sea of red and white, Canadian flags and hockey jerseys. Honestly, Canadians don't get patriotic about much, but holy shit do we get patriotic about hockey. Which is something that some American friends learned that day. They were great sports, but they sat there the entire time with bewildered looks on their faces, like they had encountered a strange alien species. When Canada finally won in overtime, the bar ROARED. And the Americans looked bewildered. And then we all got gift certificates to Porter Airlines.

Hockey: more than just a game.

Celebrity Sightings, Volume 2: Cool or Creepy?

Ok so I don't know what's going on with my celebrity radar this week but they keep popping up everywhere. I'm not sure if I'm becoming more observant/aware or if it's just a coincidence. Anyway, I already saw SJP, which was MY 'ultimate' celeb-sighting experience, but last week I saw the person who most other New Yorkers would deem the ultimate New York celebrity-sighting: Woody Allen.

I was on my way back from work, and had decided to walk down to 68th and Lex, instead of getting on at 77th. So I'm walking south, and just as I am coming up to 70th Street, I look up and I see him. Not JUST Woody Allen, however. Woody and Soon-Yi. (Cool. But creepy. But cool. But.... creepy) She was standing there holding some sort of box of something or other, and he was standing on the corner, wearing a hat that was partly shading his face, with a cane, and on his cell phone. What interesting, though, is that unlike all of my other celebrity-sighting experiences ('hey I know that girl from somewhere... where is it? Uni? Toronto? Oh no wait... that's Mary-Kate Olsen'), this time I recognized him *immediately*. But not only did I recognize him immediately, for a brief second I actually felt like I was IN A MOVIE.

Just as I thought that, he looked up at me, ready to recognize that I was recognizing him, but only making eye contact for a moment, because I was already looking away, and he went back to his phone conversation.

Celebrity Sightings

Since moving to New York I've seen a few celebrities. Not as many as you'd think, but then again while walking down the street I tend to have my head in the clouds.

My first celebrity sighting was in Greenwich Village, in the fall of 2006, while trying to find somewhere to have lunch with my Dad. Meandering up 4th Avenue, we happened to be behind Jon Stewart who was out with his son. Weird to see such a cool and witty celeb running along the sidewalk yelling 'now we're swimming we're swimming' while miming front crawl while his two year old son ran beside him laughing and squealing. So cute though. I think I fell a little bit in love with Jon Stewart that day.

Since then I've seen a number of less well-known celebs: the mom from Knocked Up in Scoops on Bleeker, the supporting nurse from Nurse Jackie at the YMCA on the elliptical trainer opposite me, and once when I was having coffee with a friend at Joe's Coffee at 13th and 5th, Parker Posey was apparently sitting next to me, waiting for her coffee - though to be fair that doesn't really count as a 'sighting' as my friend didn't tell me that until she'd left.

Which is fair enough. With the exception of the mom from Knocked Up, who looked as though she was thrilled that I'd clearly recognized her, most celebrities probably get sick of being constantly stared at/pointed at etc.

The other day I even saw Mary-Kate or Ashley Olsen at Cafe Loup. And it's sort of weird to see someone I consider a big celeb, because I'm not used to seeing them, and so it takes me a minute sometimes to realize that I'm recognizing someone famous, as opposed to someone I recognize from uni or whatever.

But yesterday, I had probably what would be for me the ultimate celebrity sighting, and again at the YMCA (what's up with that? I thought celebrities could afford

personal trainers? Is the economy that bad??). Again, head in the clouds, I came into the Y, gave my card to the girl to scan, hopped down the stairs and just as I was about to enter the Ladies' change room, a hoard of kids came out, jerking me out of my reverie. As I glanced up to avoid them I noticed that they were with a lady, not much taller than they were, and I thought, once again: hey that lady looks familiar... (Brain: whhrr whrrr... click click...) Then as she looked up at me, everything finally clicked into place and I thought: oh my god, that's Sarah Jessica Parker! And just as I thought that she glanced away.

Wow. Awesome.

Snow days

Another point where New York diverges from Toronto: snow. Snow here is less frequent, and thus has a bigger impact on the city. NYC will get the occasional light snowfall, but now and then there will be a 'Noreaster' which is a big storm that hits the northeast corner of the States. Last week we had one of these such 'blizzards' where we got about a foot of snow, six inches of which stuck overnight, and then it all turned to slush. The morning of the blizzard I came out of my building, heading to work, and I was gobsmacked by how dead the street was. The city basically shut down for the day. I managed to get my shift at work in, but by the time I got home (2ish) stores were closing down early, everyone was heading home. And so I stayed in my apt watching the snow fall for the rest of the evening, and for the first time, in the city that never sleeps, I couldn't go anywhere.

New York Visitors

I recently had my first real visitor in my NYC studio (apart from my mum - sorry mum). I love visitors – it often means I’ll get to do things that I wouldn’t otherwise. Some highlights:

BAM: We went to see "As You Like It" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which is part of the Sam Mendes 'Bridge Project,' - a company created of both American and British actors. My friend (who, just for context, is Italian born and raised) leans over and says to me: are only some of them doing English accents? Isn't that a bit weird?

I don't think it is weird, because although I'm not that familiar with how Shakespeare is done in America, it's pretty standard these days (in Canada) to do one's own accent. (After all, the kind of English accent that Shakespeare would have had, I hear from experts anyway, sounds much more like how they speak in Newfoundland. Weird.)

Anyway, the production was ok, which was a bit disappointing considering all the hype. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't inspiring. Highlights:

Set: high production value. Orlando: flat, ugh. Rosalind: annoying, Jaques: amazing. (which by extension meant that the 'All the World's a Stage' speech almost made up for the rest of the production)

House of Yes: Saturday night was spent at The House of Yes - typical Williamsburg (well ok, Bushwick) warehouse style indie space, $10 cover, four or five bands, BYOB. We ended up leaving early (I wasn't feeling well). Still, we managed to see the first three bands, pole dancers (she looked good on the pole but we realized it was an optical illusion, since when she got down you could see that she must have been anorexic), fire-eaters, a lady about the age of a grandma yoga-dancing to the second band, and a gymnastic routine.

Who’s next?

Welcome to NYC

It has been said that Toronto is like New York run by the Swiss. That is, Toronto is a like a cleaner, neater, better run, safer and more polite version of New York. And this is not entirely wrong, because otherwise Toronto wouldn’t play the part of New York so often in movies.

But mostly, Toronto is not like New York. In fact I think that the best line I’ve heard on this subject is something Alec Baldwin’s character on 30 Rock says: “Yeah Toronto! It’s just like New York. Except without all the stuff.”

The reason that this is funny, at least to me, is that ‘all the stuff’ is precisely what makes New York the way it is. Manhattan especially is crammed full of everything imaginable, and, as Huey Lewis notes, where else can you do half a million things, all at a quarter to three?

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of explaining that whenever I come back to New York, especially after a long time away, I have to mentally prepare myself for coming back to all the stuff: people crammed into subways especially during rush hour such that one has about half a millimeter of personal space, the crowds on the streets, especially in my area of town, the noise, the pace, people yelling, things crashing, neighbours playing loud music etc. Beyond all of this though, there is almost always a moment, an encounter or an observation where it finally really hits me: aha! Yes, yes I am back in New York now, aren’t I?

To give some past examples, there was a beautiful day in September when I was walking up 5^th Avenue and thinking to myself how beautiful New York is in the fall. I was still in Toronto-mode, so I was politely waiting for the light to change at 11^th street, daydreaming a bit, when all of a sudden some lady jumps into the cab in front of me and it starts pulling away. Two seconds later another lady runs up to the same cab, waving her arms around and screaming: “THAT’S MY FUCKIN CAB, BITCH! MY FUCKIN CAB!!!”

Another time, I had been on the subway when a drunken old man approached me, saying crude things and following me through a couple of subway cars. Now, in this case, he was short and ‘pissed out of his box’, as the Irish would say, and so if it had come down to it I could have pushed him over with my pinkie. And I managed to lose him eventually. Nevertheless, it was a bit unsettling, and as I was going to catch the train later that day I saw a cop standing around looking bored. So I decided to ask him what he recommended that I do in that situation, should it come up again. The scene went something as follows:

Cop: (looking me up and down - slowly) You sure he just wasn’t hitting on you now?

Me: Pardon?

Cop: Cause you know (hitches up belt) you’re a beautiful lady, and sometimes shy gentlemen such as myself don’t always know what to say to beautiful ladies like you.

Me: …

He then proceeded to offer to buy me pepper spray, and then tried to get my number so that he could ‘deliver it’ to me. Welcome to NYC.

This time I haven’t obviously had one of those moments, and I’m not sure why, but I think it might also be because I am more and more used to the craziness of New York. But I was having drinks with a friend last night, and he told me something that led me, vicariously, to have an ‘aha! I’m back in NYC’ moment, but this time it had slightly more positive overtones. Background: we were talking about what it takes for a New Yorker to help someone. There’s a checklist that you go through in your mind whenever you see someone in need of help, about if the person is crazy, how much they need, how much time will this take me, etc. New Yorkers aren’t as cold as their reputation would indicate, but they also don’t have a lot of time. (By contrast I find Torontonians much colder.) Anyway my friend was walking north on 8^th Ave, and saw a father and daughter trying to hail a cab, and failing badly. The father was only half-heartedly holding out his arm, and as any good New Yorker knows, you need to be a little more

assertive than that. After all, everyone is trying to hail a cab - you’ve got to hail with conviction. So he took pity on them, and without missing a beat, or losing a step, my friend lets out a loud whistle, and gestures assertively across the street to the cabbie, who pulls over immediately and the father and daughter get in. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t realize what I’d done,” he says to me. “But it was my good deed of the day.”

Welcome to NYC.

Pride and Prejudices

I don't think it's news that North Americans have a certain romantic conception of 'Britishness.' Even as someone who went to an Anglican girls school, where about 30% of my teachers were British of some description, and even though I have loads of cousins in the UK, the accent still always had a sort of romantic ring to it. I'm not sure what it is but anything said in a (particular sort of) British accent always sounds prettier, cleverer. Or at least it did until I lived there for three years. And I sort of regret that loss, even though I am happy to be disabused of certain fancies of what it means to be British.

On the other side of things, it is often thought that Brits think that Americans are a bit ignorant. And they do. But there is a less obvious, and more romantic notion of Americans that I think the Brits are less eager to share, because it is slightly more humbling for them. I didn't realize that this sort of romantic stereotyping went both ways until a friend in Edinburgh informed me that her only understanding of America was from television and films, and so she had this skewed yet persistent idea that everyone in New York lived like the characters on

Seinfeld or Friends. (This sort of reminds me of another friend from school who, when she was younger, changed schools three times in the space of three or four years, and somehow it just happened that she had only Canadian history for about three or four years in a row. As a result she entered her teenage years with the strange notion that everyone around the world for the past 500 years had been pioneers who lived in log cabins. She knew it was wrong and yet she couldn't get the image out of her head.)

Anyway, examples of this more romantic stereotype of Americans can be seen in many of Richard Curtis's films, such as Four Weddings and a Funeral. I have seen this movie about a hundred times, but I will never forget the one time I watched it with an American friend. She became increasingly agitated while watching it, until she finally turned to me and said angrily, referring to Andie McDowell's character: "Is that really how the rest of the world views Americans? As complete sluts?" Now, while it's true that there is a scene in which this character, Carrie, confesses that she's slept with something like 34 men (is that even a huge number these days? anyway), until that moment it had never occurred to me that it was a negative depiction. "Er, I don't think that's what Richard Curtis means by that character," I replied. "Honestly I think it's coming more from a sense of quiet admiration for American sexuality." I mean, throughout that scene Hugh Grant looks on with a uncomfortable awe, not disgust. What's interesting about this is that my American friend seemed to disapprove of Carrie much more than the British ever would.

But I'm still trying to figure out what the romantic notion of a Canadian is. So far the most I've gotten is that Canadians are 'nice' and 'tolerant.' Which isn't really romantic. But I think that we can use this to our advantage. Thoughts?

Public Transit

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) recently decided to implement a fare hike, from $2.75 a ride to $3. Now, as someone who lives in the city with the largest metro system in North America, I am somewhat spoiled. NYC has a 30-day metro card, that can be purchased ANY day, not just on the first of the month. It costs $89. Considering how much I use the metro that works out to less than a dollar a ride. So I admit that for me, coming back to Toronto is aggravating when taking the TTC. Not just the (now) higher expense,

but the absolute ridiculousness of how incredibly inefficient it can be sometimes.

The two lines parallel to each other at the southern end of the system, are in reality about an 8 minute walk from each other. So why put all that effort into two lines that are so close? And you might wait for 25 minutes on King St for a streetcar, only to have two or three come along at the same time. Oh, and when they implemented the fare hike, in the weeks leading up to it the TTC stopped selling tokens, to avoid 'token hoarding' (ie everyone buying the tokens at the cheaper price and hoarding them to avoid having to buy them at the elevated price). Instead their solution was to sell paper tickets, which you can't slip into the handy token slots but instead have to line up to place into the little plastic container in front of the TTC dude (who, by the way, is making probably twice as much per year as tenured academics. Ugh.). This created insane lineups in stations, and sometimes ten minute waits JUST TO PLACE YOUR TICKET IN THE BOX. I heard from a friend that as she was waiting in line one day, someone went up and opened the extra gate to the station, because they were so frustrated waiting in line. People flooded in and TTC personnel started going mad, screaming at people to get back in line. What she noticed that was most interesting though was that as this happened, EVERY SINGLE PERSON placed a ticket on top of the box. People weren't trying to gyp the TTC, they just needed to get wherever the hell they needed to go.

Anyway I've noticed that while the NYC system is certainly not perfect, there is a stronger emotional tie to it, more of an unconscious fondness of the NYC metro as compared with the TTC. And I think that maybe if the TTC worked on developing an emotional connection with their ridership, they might not have to hike fares as often. The NYC metro has commercialized their logos - you can buy countless paraphernalia with the different stops on, and in the metro system itself there are subway ads sporting poetry and art.

I was rifling through my wallet the other day and a friend, who used to live in NYC, says, looking into my wallet: "awww... NYC metrocards! I miss those." And I thought: I would never say that about a TTC token.